


the price of magic

by greywardenblue



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Fictober 2019, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: Toby wakes on a floor she doesn't recognise, with no memories of how she got there.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	the price of magic

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts in this work:  
> “I’m doing this for you.” & “Scared, me?”

Toby was lying on something hard that felt like a floor.

“October? Come on, I’ll help you up.”

A man with fox-red hair reached out, and she let him pull her up from the floor. She couldn’t say thanks, so she quickly bowed her head to get the point across. Sylvester’s presence suggested to her this might be Shadowed Hills, but when she looked around, she couldn’t recognize the place. There was a woman leaning against the kitchen counter, but Toby didn’t pay her much attention.

“Where are we?” she asked Sylvester. “Where’s Julie? I was with her a minute ago.”

He stared back at her, his mouth trying to form words that wouldn’t come.

“Are you okay?” she asked in confusion. “Sylvester, what’s–”

The man flinched. “Wrong brother, I’m afraid,” he said, and he sounded genuinely sorry about it.

“Oh.” Toby knew who Simon Torquill was, of course, but she couldn’t recall having a single conversation with him, and there were all those rumors about him being caught up in shady business. She took up a defensive stance she learned from Devin, and examined the other woman in the room more closely. She looked completely human, but Toby couldn’t see the edges of illusions on her. She was tapping her fingers against the counter and stared at Toby sadly, her eyes green like kelp.

“Why am I here?” she asked finally, rounding on Simon. The man looked up back at her helplessly.

“October,” the other woman said. “Do you remember me?”

Toby squinted at her. She still looked ordinary. “No.”

The woman smiled, and the smile was like a breaking heart. Somebody said that, but she couldn’t remember who, or why. That didn’t even make any sense. 

“I’m Annie,” the woman said. “I’m a lot more than seven.”

Toby stared. “You’re the woman with the lost dog, from the playground.”

Annie nodded. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“I… don’t know why I do. That was such a long time ago.” What was she doing today? She was with Julie, and they were running around doing some stuff while they could before they would have go and report to Devin. She had been feeling strange and throwing up for days, and she finally convinced herself to get a pregnancy test and hide it in her jacket. She hadn’t used it yet. 

"Sometimes your mind remembers things that are important, even if you don’t know why,” Annie said. Then she moved, and Toby tensed, but she only reached for a vial on the counter.

“Drink this,” she said, handing it over. Toby took the vial and looked at it suspiciously.

“Is this blood?” she asked. The woman nodded in confirmation. “Why the hell would I drink this?”

Annie frowned. “Are you a Daoine Sidhe, or are you not? Blood is your element. Blood is your life. You are confused, but the blood has answers. Drink it. Blood can lead you home.”

Toby drank the blood without thinking.

_She was standing in this same room, but in the memory, everything was red. Simon Torquill - she recognized him now, he was wearing the same clothes as his present version - was tied to a chair with ropes that flowed like water, and he was snarling at her._

_“This is a lovely conversation, really, but will somebody untie me so I can stab you already?”  
_

_“Shut the fuck up,” Toby’s mouth said, and she was surprised to hear her own voice come out of it. Was this her own memory? That was impossible. “I’m doing this for you, you idiot. You’d better not waste it.”  
_

_She looked to the side and there she was, Annie, but it wasn’t quite her. It was like when somebody took the human disguise off and you saw their true face, but still recognized the person you were seeing before._

_This Annie looked scarier and sadder at the same time._

_“Are you scared?” memory-Toby asked in wonder.  
_

_Annie laughed. “Scared, me? I’m the motherfucking sea witch, kid.”_

_Toby frowned in indignation. “That’s not an answer.”_

_“I’m terrified,” Annie said. “I’m terrified of what will happen, and what you will do, and what your fiancé and your squires and your sisters will do when they learn that I let you. And I love you with all my heart. You are loved, Toby. Come home to us.”  
_

_“There is no force in the world that will keep me from them again,” Toby said. “There is no force that will keep me from you, not even you. I promise you, Auntie. I promise.”  
_

The memory ended. There was nothing else to follow.

She didn’t feel like she was home. She certainly wasn’t Home.

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded, glaring at the two people in the room. “What was that about?”

Annie frowned. “Well, shit. I was _really_ hoping that would work.”

“So what’s the plan?” Simon asked.

Annie shrugged. “Right now? You should probably hide before kittycat gets suspicious and shows up here. He probably won’t be able to kill me, but I don’t have high hopes for you.” She perked up. “Hey, maybe we can try true love’s kiss. Faerie’s rules are weird enough that it might work.”

Toby opened her mouth to answer, but there was movement near the wall. King Jerkface stepped out of the shadows followed by two young men - boys? -, one Daoine Sidhe, one Cait Sidhe.

Tybalt looked at Toby and blinked, relief flooding his face. “Oh, thank Maeve,” he said, already moving towards her. “I thought you’d be bleeding out at the very least.”

Julie’s uncle gathered her into a tight hug, and Toby stared. “Uh,” she said. “What the hell are you doing?”

Tybalt pulled his head back to look at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Toby frowned and tried to push him away. It didn’t work, but after a few seconds of shock, he stepped back willingly. “Are you trying to find the best spot for a disemboweling? Because that is a really lame trick.” She glanced at the two boys, both looking under twenty, then back at Tybalt. “Did Julie send you? I was with her, but… the last few hours are a little fuzzy.”

Tybalt stared at her, then rounded on Annie, snarling. “What did you do?”

“I’m going to drag that asshole back,” the younger Cait Sidhe said, and stalked out of the room. Toby realized that Simon must have taken Annie’s advice and slipped out while Tybalt was busy hugging her.

“I did what she asked me to do,” Annie snapped. “I did what she needed to do to pay her debt. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t have a choice about it because _she_ asked, so we have this now, and we are going to talk about how to fix it.”

Tybalt took a deep breath and turned back to her.

“Toby,” he said, anguish in his voice. “Don’t you remember me?”

Toby frowned. “Of course I remember you,” she said. “You’re Julie’s uncle, you’re an asshole, we don’t like each other. We certainly don’t hug. Did I miss something?”

Tybalt continued staring. Toby was starting to get a little uncomfortable.

“I love you,” he said, and she wondered if he had hit his head. “Even in your dreams, you can no longer imagine a world where I don’t love you. Don’t you remember that? You told me it was true.”

“I…” Toby felt dazed. “I have a boyfriend,” she said, her hand slipping into her jacket’s pocket to find the pregnancy test. It wasn’t there. This wasn’t her jacket. “I don’t know if you’re on drugs or something, I thought you were above goblin fruit, but–”

“So, wait,” the Daoine Sidhe boy said. “Her memory is reset to a time before I was even born?”

“I’m afraid so,” Annie said.

“Would she recognize Julie, then?” the Cait Sidhe boy asked, dragging Simon behind him back into the room. Tybalt snarled at him as well, but didn’t move from beside Toby.

“That’s a good question,” Annie said. “It’s possible that her memories would simply return to a certain point in time, like with Tybalt. The difference is that Tybalt wasn’t home to her back then, but Julie might be. With her, simply going back in time might not be enough.”

“So what do we do?” the Daoine boy asked. “And for the record, I might look calm right now, but I am not calm. I am pissed, and I am terrified, and I really don’t like this. So let’s fix it quick so I can have my knight back, okay?”

Everyone looked at Annie.

“We bring my father back,” she said. There were sounds of disbelief and indignation, and Toby realized her voice was the loudest of all, but when Annie raised a hand, everyone went silent. “I need a few hours to set things up, then we can begin. In the meantime, stay with her. Talk to her. Don’t push too hard, but try to lead her home. Try meeting Julie, it’s worth a try. Hell, try taking her to Shadowed Hills and see if anything clicks. Just be careful.”

Toby frowned. “You are all weird,” she said, her heart beating faster than it should have. She was scared. “I’m going home to Cliff.”

Tybalt let out a pained noise, like when you step on a cat’s tail.

“She doesn’t know the new address, right? So she can’t go there and make a scene. It’s fine,” the Cait Sidhe boy said. Toby realized he was shaking, the hair on his arms standing up as if he was in cat form. She didn’t know if he was trying to hold in fear or anger, but it wasn’t very subtle.

“Can you stop talking about me like I’m not here?” she snapped, turning to Tybalt. She didn’t like him, but out of all these people, she still knew him the most - and he was Julie’s, even if Julie didn’t always want him. “What’s going on?”

Tybalt took a deep breath. “These are Quentin and Raj,” he said, gesturing to the youngsters. “They are your family. _I_ am your family. We love you more than the moon loves the stars, and we will continue telling you this until you believe us. I will continue telling you this until you believe me. I already spent years having to convince you it was true. I will do it again until it sticks.”

Toby stared at him without a word. His claims didn’t make sense, and yet, she could feel someone in the back of her mind shouting that it was true.

“I want to go Home,” she said.

“We all want you to come home,” Tybalt said.

Toby shook her head. “I want to go Home.”

Recognition shined in Tybalt’s eyes. “Ah,” he said slowly. “Well… I suppose it’s as good a place to start as any. Shall we go?”

Toby wanted to tell him not to come, that he didn’t even get along with Devin, that they weren’t friends, why was he following her. Instead, she nodded.


End file.
